Quantifying honey bee mating range and isolation in semi-isolated valleys by DNA microsatellite paternity analysis

Abstract

Honey bee males and queens mate in mid air and can fly many kilometres on their nuptial flights. The conservation of native honey bees, such as the European black bee (Apis mellifera mellifera), therefore, requires large isolated areas to prevent hybridisation with other subspecies, such as A. m. ligustica or A. m. carnica, which may have been introduced by beekeepers. This study used DNA microsatellite markers to determine the mating range of A. m. mellifera in two adjacent semi-isolated valleys (Edale and Hope Valley) in the Peak District National Park, England, in order to assess their suitability for native honey bee conservation and as isolated mating locations. Three apiaries were set up in each valley, each containing 12 colonies headed by a virgin queen and 2 queenright drone producing hives. The virgin queens were allowed to mate naturally with drones from the hives we had set up and with drones from hives owned by local beekeepers. After mating, samples of worker larvae were taken from the 41 queens that mated successfully and genotyped at 11 DNA microsatellite loci. Paternity analyses were then carried out to determine mating distances and isolation. An average of 10.2 fathers were detected among the 16 worker progeny. After correction for non-detection and non-sampling errors, the mean effective mating frequency of the test queens was estimated to be 17.2, which is a normal figure for honey bees. Ninety percent of the matings occurred within a distance of 7.5 km, and fifty percent within 2.5 km. The maximal mating distance recorded was 15 km. Queens and drones did occasionally mate across the borders between the two valleys, showing that the dividing mountain ridge Losehill does not provide complete isolation. Nevertheless, in the most isolated part of Edale sixty percent of all matings were to drones from Edale hives. The large majority of observed mating distances fell within the range of Hope Valley, making this site a suitable location for the long term conservation of a breeding population of black bees.

Multi-level selection for hygienic behaviour in honeybees

“…The high mortality during the mating flights may be related to the removal of wing tips for genotyping, and the use instead of non-destructive sources of DNA, such as pupal exuviae (Gregory and Rinderer, 2004), would therefore be advisable for genotyping virgin queens. Many of the matings themselves were to non-target drones because the Edale Valley Site is only semi-isolated from other honeybees (Jensen et al, 2005). This did not bias our results because the effect was equal for queens from hygienic and non-hygienic patrilines, but the effectiveness of the selection regime would be improved by using fully isolated mating apiaries or artificial insemination to ensure that all queens are mated with males from the hygienic breeder colony.…”

“…The ages of queens ranged from 3-7 days at the time of introduction, and any queens that failed to be accepted were replaced with another queen of known patriline. The mating hives were then placed in July 2004 at an apiary (Whitmore Lea Farm, Barber Booth) in the Edale Valley (Derbyshire, England), which is semi-isolated from natural mating interactions with honeybee colonies outside the valley (Jensen et al, 2005). The third breeder colony, N14, was also located at the mating apiary to provide drones for the queens to mate with.…”

Using Whole-Genome Sequence Information to Foster Conservation Efforts for the European Dark Honey Bee, Apis mellifera mellifera

“…The large mating distances of drones and queens (Ruttner and Ruttner, 1972;Böttcher, 1975;Jensen et al, 2005b), as well as the highly polyandrous mating system (Woyke, 1964;Adams et al, 1977;Neumann et al, 1999b) impose practical difficulties to conserve honey bee subspecies or to maintain breeding lines (Neumann et al, 1999a). This is further confounded by the ease at which different subspecies hybridize with one another (Franck et al, 2000a;Soland-Reckeweg et al, 2009).…”

The density of feral honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in South East Australia is greater in undisturbed than in disturbed habitats

“…Under the assumption that drones fly an average of 900 m (Taylor and Rowell 1988), the area surveyed by a drone trap is approximately 2.5 km 2 (Moritz et al 2007(Moritz et al , 2008Jaffé et al 2010). However, the flight range of drones and queens is plastic (Peer 1957;Neumann et al 1999;Jensen et al 2005), and the 2.5-km 2 mating flight range is likely a significant underestimate. Rather than trying to infer the density of colonies based on assumptions about drone flight range, a more robust approach may be to use agent-based simulations to generate synthetic sampling distributions (Arundel et al 2013).…”